Angels At Our Table

The stars once spoke to man. It is world destiny that they are silent now To become aware of this silence Can be pain for earth humanity. But in the deepening silence There grows and ripens What man speak to the stars. To become aware of this speaking Can become strength for Spirit Man.

Rudolph Steiner

At Harvard Business School they probably don't instruct students to discuss strategic business decisions with their customers, particularly in terms of the evolution of the consciousness soul and world destiny. Perhaps they are right. Confining such conversations to the realm of "what" engenders a certain sense of solidity. Embracing woo-woo and the murky realm of "why" does have its downside. I posit here however that the concepts of what and why are best understood when packaged together. It's all about Faith.

Faith is much misunderstood. The word "faith" typically refers to knowledge and convictions that are not supported by material evidence or proof. It would be more useful if folks would simply settle for believing something without invoking faith in order to recast their beliefs as knowledge. Using faith to transmogrify beliefs into facts provides a false sense of security and often forestalls additional reasonable inquiry. It becomes a means to shelve some of life's greatest riddles.

Properly understood, Faith is not a substitute from of knowledge; Faith is an actualizing force. Faith was not essential in earlier epochs of evolution when "the Stars once spoke to man" and the relationship between human beings and the hierarchies was ordered much differently. But that was then, and this is now. Now we are left with only our own volition and powers of divination. Our angels no longer actuate their will directly through us but instead are chained to our bumbling and dithering. It is only when we act, when we take the "right" next step, that these angels are set free to do their work and to fulfill their own destinies. This freeing of the hierarchies is called Faith. Faith occurs when we use accurate intuition, or divination, and combine that knowledge with our courage and, accordingly, our Will. Faith is an actualizing force that unleashes the hierarchies and sets all manner of events into motion. Now that's leverage!

The real trick is to do our work and take the necessary steps before the angels get fed up with waiting and attempt to force our hand, usually by inspiring events to beat the tar out us. We have all had experiences in our lives that seemed so upsetting at the time and now, looking back, we see perfect wisdom. We look around and see people we love that we wouldn't have met or find ourselves doing fulfilling work that we would never have discovered but for these upsetting events in our past. Yet wouldn't it have been nice if we could have found our way without the beatings?

Such is the perusing of ownership these days at Bethany's Table as we chart our next steps. It was seemingly serendipity that landed us in this business when the previous owner, David's sister Shelley, threw in the towel. In just a year we have danced and gyrated our way into an enterprise that bears very little resemblance to the business we acquired. We have been clinging to the original conception of our core business to be selling prepared meals. Since Janet is a trained chef, we distinguished our offerings as upgraded from the Dinners Ready menu by branding them as "restaurant quality meals". We started serving lunch to better use the space that was once filled with stainless steel carts and to get people through the door. We started hosting wine tastings in order to feature meals from our menu. One thing lead to another and we started the "What's For Dinner" program with nightly offerings of four to five entrees from our test kitchen. Now we have a full menu and serve dinner five nights per week. Wine tastings and group events are common occurrences.

The transaction volume from lunch and dinner has outpaced prepared meal sales by a significant factor. Yet we have continued to define ourselves as a prepared meal business that is also a restaurant. But this is no longer true. We have unwittingly become a restaurant that also sells prepared meals. We no longer need to brand the meals as "restaurant quality". Of course they are restaurant quality. We are a restaurant; and a good one. So we have decided to remake the meal business to into a more natural offshoot of the restaurant. This singleness of purpose will simplify our message and enhance creativity. The prepared meals menu will be pared down but more flexible with a greater emphasis on seasonality and fresh foods.

Let's hope this makes the angels happy. We could use the leverage.

Menu Changes

The restaurant menu and the prepared meals menu each boast a number of new items this month. The big change however is in the number of items that have been pruned from the prepared meals menu. We apologize to those of you who will mourn the removal of your favorites. Yet because you loved the Meatloaf, the Chicken Cordon Bleu, the Shrimp Ravioli, etc. we kept them on the menu month after month. Each month it grew tougher to make room for new items and maintaining inventory became more and more cumbersome. And the menu got a bit stale.

The work to manage the monster take-home meal menu has been clogging up our work. We will continue to emphasize the family friendly “Crowd Pleaser” meals. Specialty meals inspired by the current season will fill out the remainder of the menu. We still offer Kids Meals (you can use the Teen Burritos to bale you out all summer). Fresh vegetables and salads are always available.

Jim the Duke of Soup churns out new concoctions faster than we can keep track of him so we have decided to fill your soup orders directly from the specials board when you come into the store. At least one vegetarian soup will always be available. Recycle! Bring your own container and save 50 cents.

Click here to View Downloadable Menus.

Or click here to Order Online.

Let us know your opinion of these changes by commenting below.

The Duke of Soup

Jim "The Duke" Davis

Many of you know Jim. Jim is an actor, director, gardener, musician, handyman, truck driver and cook.

And Jim is the Duke of Soup.

Jim's penchant for making soup is unstoppable. He often doesn't follow a recipe. He just makes soup and it's always good.

Jim has developed quite a following. Lately he has been making some great summer soups such as Gazpacho and an Asparagus Vichyssoise. The only problem is, we can't seem to keep track of all the soups Jim has on hand and his freewheeling style makes it a real nuisance to maintain the online menu.

So we have taken the list of soups off of the prepared meals menu and instead now sell it more on an ad hoc basis. There will always be at least four soups available. They are always list on the chalkboard by the kitchen. These will be the soups we are selling to our lunch and dinner customers that day and we will happily fill pint and quart containers for folks to take home. The price remains the same, $6 per pint and $10 per quart. A number of our regulars have been bringing in their empty containers for us to refill and we think this is a great idea. To encourage and reward this highly efficient mode of recycling we will credit back 50 cents for every container we refill.

We absolutely promise that you will love Jim’s soup. Try some today.

Follow the Bouncing Ball

We have really had our eye on making the restaurant successful. And it works. Serving lunch and dinner, with brunch on the weekends. The thing we haven’t mastered is keeping our eye on two balls at the same time.  As the restaurant does better and grows, the take home meal business weakens and wanes.  This is a riddle because the dinner menu evolves around the take home meal menu. What you get for $14 in the restaurant you can take home to prepare at home in one step for less than $6.  It was always our imagination that showcasing the meals at our table would encourage folks to take them home to enjoy in their own dining room.

We asked for your feedback and we acted on it. The old ordering system was a pain – so we changed it.  Some of you said the meals were too fancy – so we created a Crowd Pleaser menu. Some of you said you only use us for special occasions – so we created the Fine Cuisine menu.  We are doing more. The new website design is almost done.  We will soon have nutritional information, caloric ratios, complete descriptions as well as cooking instructions posted for every meal.  We plan to add a budget-minder menu so families with children can pick up a higher volume, healthy meal on the cheap and feed the crew.  But we wonder, are we beating a dead horse here?  What gives?

What we do know is that there is not a viable business at this location for an affordable restaurant that seats only 30.  We have half-decided to create a lane change in the evening right around 8 PM and crank up the wine bar scene with special pours, a unique menu and live music.  Folks have shown us that they love having a place in the neighborhood to hang out.  At least then we could get a turn on the tables some evenings.  This has not proven to be a late dining neighborhood but, again, folks do crave a place to go out, meet, visit, party… whatever.

Your Input Is Needed

The question remains though, even as we continue to reincarnate, even with these enhancements, will the meal business pick back up? And can we make this a viable business if it doesn’t?  What is your opinion? Get off your hands and put in your two cents. Add your comments below.  Let’s have a conversation.  We’d sure appreciate your input.

The restaurant business continues to improve. Brunch is taking off, Mothers Day was a smash success, although the Hollandaise sauce broke… Weeknights are steady and getting busier.  Friday and Saturday are busy. With Friday night taking off it feels on the one hand like we did the right thing moving the wine tastings to Thursday night. But, on the other hand, the Thursday wine tastings are much less robust than they were when we held them on Friday.  Perhaps when the weather improves and the outside tables are more appealing we can have a wine tasting on Friday and still be open for dining.

As the days lengthen our approach to the evening business changes. We are going to take some steps to energize the wine bar. We have had live music on a few occasions and people have really enjoyed these evenings. There is a Small Plate & Smackeral Menu that is currently handed out in the wine bar. We think we will grow this menu for the light and late night dining crowd.

We have some great beers and some of the local beer aficionados have discovered us. In fact, we are beginning the work to put together a beer tasting involving local, private brewers. We may even host a juried competition. Some of our customers who are also brewers will be helping us put these events together. Yahoo.

The patisserie part of the business has been weak. This is our fault. Janet has just not been working hard enough. Sometimes she leaves before 11 pm and then we don’t see her again until 8 in the morning. What kind of way is this to run a business?  Anyway, we have to play the hand we are dealt.  So we have a plan in the works to add a super-star baker to our staff. We’ll keep you posted.

Would you like to comment? Feel free! In the words of David Ogilvy, the famous copywriter, “If you have something to say: Say It!” By the way, he then said, “If you don’t: Sing It.”